Vienna’s Dreams of Europe: Culture and Identity beyond the Nation-State

Product Description


A sweeping account and re-evaluation of Austrian identity, via literature, culture and history, from the Enlightenment to the present.


Review


“Vienna's Dreams of Europe not only offers a rethinking of Austria’s place in Europe; it also offers a rethinking of Austria’s place within (North American) German studies.” –Todd Herzog, Austrian Studies Newsmagazine
“Through a series of expansive case studies-ranging from Sonnenfels to Stifter to Schnitzler, from Hanswurst to Hofmannsthal to Handke, and including many points along the way-Katherine Arens innovatively explores the interconnected public spaces of Austrian culture extending well beyond the borders of the nation-state. This illuminating and elegantly written book reshapes our understanding of the ongoing public project of enlightenment and provides a rewarding road map for postnational cultural studies.” ―Craig Decker, Professor of German and Chair, Department of German and Russian Studies, Bates College, USA
“Vienna's Dreams of Europe is a critique of familiar teleological readings of modern history, an attempt to provide a more nuanced understanding of regional public institutions and public spaces in Central Europe, and an exploration of distinctively Austrian approaches to the idea of Europe. Arens brings to cultural studies-and to German studies in particular-a complex picture of European history and culture, which challenges common assumptions about modern Europe since the eighteenth century, especially “the fiction of an emerging 'German' culture-nation.”” ―David Luft, Professor of History, Oregon State University, USA“An interesting volume that demands readers’ attention … This study adds to the still-growing number of works representative of a resurgence in scholarly attention to Habsburg and Austrian literature, culture, and history that recognize their ongoing prominence and importance to Central Europe and Europe as a whole.” - Studies in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature


About the Author


Katherine Arens is a Professor of Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. She is also a Professor in the Center for European Studies and the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of seven books, including
Belle Necropolis: Ghosts of Imperial Vienna (2014), Empire in Decline (2001), and Austria and Other Margins: Reading Culture (1996). She has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Plato Award from the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, UK.